G325 Q1A

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InDesign, Photoshop, Scribd, Blogger, Youtube, Issuu, SurveyMonkey

I found Adobe InDesign to be a key programme in the construction of my magazine. The software gave me a selection of tools I could select from to alter different sections of my magazine. I found the text wrap tool to be very useful as it let the text wrap round the selected object, text frame and imported image without making drastic changes to the design of my page. This enabled me to save time as the tool was very easily manageable, making it much easier for me to fit the text and picture together without changing the size and shape of the picture or text by hand. I also found the tool paragraph styles to be very helpful as it allowed me to use a specific text size, font and colour when needed. I found this tool to be convenient when creating my contents page as it made it much easier and quicker for me to create headings and subheadings without having to waste time searching for the right font style of size for each individual title.

The software Adobe Photoshop also helped me to create my magazine. I used this software to edit pictures as the programme included a selection of different tools including a burn tool, spot healing brush tool and a mask mode tool. I primarily used the burn tool on close up shots of my model to make her features seem darker and stand out more. Overall, I believe these improvements I made on Photoshop helped me to create a finish look to my magazine.

I also used online programmes such as scribd, slideshare and blogger to present my work. The programmes enabled me to share my work with others and create a neat, straight-forward presentation.

Overall, from using these programmes for my AS coursework, I feel it has prepared me to use similar products at A2 which will hopefully help the process of production making it quicker and easier.

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY

RESEARCH AND PLANNING Research: the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions.

Planning: the process of making plans for something.

Before creating my final magazine for AS, I conducted a series of documents as part of the research and planning process. This included a proposal, audience survey, magazine conventions and photo-shoot ideas. Audience feedback helped me to develop my ideas further and enabled me to interact with my target audience asking them what they liked and disliked about my product. I also found the proposal to be an important step in the creation of my magazine as it gave me a basic outline of what I was going to include in my magazine - genre, target audience, frequency, freebies and competitions.Advantages Disadvantages

• The research was accessible.

• Enabled me to develop my ideas.

• Criticism from my target audience was very useful as it gave me a better understanding of what I needed to improve to suit my specific audience.

• Time consuming

CREATIVITYCreativity: the use of imagination or original ideas to create something; inventiveness.

When designing my magazine, I thought very carefully on the different aspects of my magazine including costumes, props, body language and lexis to help represent the specific social group of pop-rock as the demographics of the social group for my magazine was ABC1 with the primary audience being male from the age group of 20-34.

Semiotics was also very important in the creation of my magazine as I had to be carefully with which colours I used throughout my magazine so the connotations suit the style and audience of my magazine. For the majority of my photos, the model is dressed in a black leather jacket and a white blouse. I choose these styles of clothing as the dark and dull colours of the leather jacket follow connotations of rock as the colour black is heavily portrayed within this genre of music. Also, the type of clothing may reflects the clothing of my target audience as they may aspire to dress in this manner. The use of props was so an important process in the creativity of my magazine. Throughout my magazine, I used a selection of props including an electric guitar and microphone to emphasise the theme of my magazine – pop/rock music.

CONVENTIONSAs the brief of our AS coursework was a music magazine, it was essential we followed conventions from existing music magazines to make our own magazine look professional.

Conventions of music magazines include:

• Front cover: masthead, cover lines, barcode, plug, price, logo, issue number• Contents page: title, features, images, reviews, editors note, magazine cover image• Double page spread: title, article, images, facts, columns, page numbers

On the front cover of my magazine I tried to include conventions of Q magazine as I believed there magazine suited my style of genre. For example, I decided to include an easy, simple and recognisable masthead for the front cover of my magazine ‘TMM’ as I noticed QMagazine included acronyms in their masthead. I also included a plug ‘The 200th Issue’ as this alsofollows the conventions of Q and Kerrang! magazineas they both include plugs on the front cover of theirmagazines to keep the reader interested.